Canadá opens women's olympic basketball qualifier with victory

Canada's women's basketball team rode a strong defensive performance to an opening win at the FIBA Americas Championship.

Kalisha Keane of Ajax, Ont., scored 15 points and added five rebounds Saturday as Canada swarmed Mexico early as part of 72-45 victory.

Canada led 19-4 after the first and 35-9 at the break as the team took a step towards qualifying for next summer's London Olympics.

"We've talked a lot about how tough we want to be defensively," Canada head coach Allison McNeill said. 

"There may be teams that score better than us, are quicker than us, but one thing we can be is a great defensive team and that was something we wanted to establish at the start of the game and we definitely did that."

Saskatoon's Krista Phillips added 11 points, while Ottawa's Courtney Pilypaitis chipped in with 10.

"We have a lot of people that score and it's not going to be easy to just shut down one or two and hopefully that will carry us through the tournament," McNeill said.

The winner of the 10-team tournament gets an automatic spot at the Games.

McNeill said the big lead allowed her to empty the bench and get most of her players an early feel for the tournament.

"It was one of those games where you get a big lead and play a lot of people and get a lot of young players minutes and get them in the flow," she said.

Erika Gomez led the way for Mexico with 18 points and eight rebounds for Mexico.

The 12th-ranked Canadians will play sixth-ranked Brazil -- who should be their toughest opponent on Sunday, before facing unranked Paraguay on Monday. 

Canada wraps up the preliminary round Wednesday versus 49th-ranked Jamaica.

"(Brazil is) definitely the team to beat here," McNeill said. 

"They have good depth. They're very athletic. 

They really run, so we'll have to try to control the tempo a little bit and they're very good on the offensive glass.

The top two teams in each of the five-country groups move on to the quarter-finals.

Canada is gunning for its first Olympic appearance since the 2.000 Sydney Games.